The Phantasmal Conference
by lankyphysicist
Summary: Two highly intelligent strangers meet in a wretched haunted house under somewhat unusual circumstances and find kindred spirits in one another. / Shamy AU


**A/N: Hello, everyone! I saw this Halloween prompt on Tumblr, and this is only going to be Halloween-centered for the first chapter, but I'm still excited about it.**

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"Honestly, this is the worst predicament that I've ever been in in my entire life," Sheldon groaned as his friends continued to walk directly towards their destination. "It's 2009 for goodness sake! I deserve a say in what we do on Halloween and I most definitely did not get a say in whether or not we have to attend this stupid haunted house!"

Howard scoffed. "Sheldon, why don't you just man up and admit that you're too scared to go inside?"

Sheldon straightened his back and stuck out his neck. "I'm not scared," he stammered quietly as his eyes darted every which way. "I just don't see the point in us _paying_ to be frightened, that's all."

"For the thrill!" Leonard said. "We could all use a little adrenaline pumping through our veins, Sheldon. So are you in or not?" As much as he didn't want to admit it, Leonard was and would always be the optimist of the group.

"I am most certainly not," Sheldon answered definitely.

"Chicken," Howard fake coughed into his elbow while Raj made horribly inaccurate clucking noises.

Leonard sighed. "Come on, buddy. I promise it will be fun."

The entrance to the event was less than stellar. It looked as if it were crafted by third graders putting on a party, complete with orange streamers and cotton balls. Howard, Raj, and Leonard entered with ease, while Sheldon was forced to duck beneath the "Welcome" sign that was hanging far too low to accommodate his stature. As the smell of fresh bales of hay and homemade apple cider filled his nostrils, a renewed spirit was created within him. This was nothing close to the face-melting scene in _Raiders of the Lost Ark._ This was child's play.

And that's how they got him.

No sooner had the tacky glue scent just faded when he was met with the loudest, longest, most blood-curdling scream ever to make its shout into the void. Sheldon made an attempt to cling to the nearest person, but the nearest person happened to be Howard, and Howard was having none of that.

"Hey, back off!" he yelled, brushing a frightened Sheldon off his shoulder. "I'm here to pick up scared chicks, not scared dicks."

"My apologies," Sheldon said courteously as he took a few brave steps forward.

An innocent breeze coming through the bedsheet curtains showcased the brevity of his bravery, however, and he was soon letting out a scream of his own.

Leonard eyed him strangely, not sure as to what scream factor he missed. "You okay, buddy?" he asked.

Raj snorted. "Looks like it's a little chilly in here."

Sheldon hugged himself insecurely, not at all content with his current situation. Unseen voices were making his eardrums pop, it was frigid, his friends were being mean to him, and it had cost him thirty-five dollars. He turned on his heels and headed back to the entrance in an attempt to escape the walk of agony.

"Sheldon, you can't get out that way!" Leonard yelled after him, but he didn't listen.

Being a fish swimming upstream was no picnic on a bright and sunny day in Galveston, let alone a haunted, ghoulish journey through a dark overhang in a strange corner of Pasadena. All the pushing and shoving led to the moment when Sheldon found himself humming the words "I want to walk as a child of the light" and cursing himself for letting an old hymn be a source of comfort.

"Move it, loser!" a particularly robust young man yelled and kicked him to the side of the path.

This was the kind of treatment he had grown used to, but this was the first time that the side of a particular path was cushioned by nothing but a literal stone wall. His head hit it first, and the rest of his body hardly had the chance to follow suit before his entire being collapsed to the grassy ground.

"Hey, are you okay, man?" a teenaged boy asked and offered out his hand for Sheldon to take.

Sheldon ignored the help and struggled to his feet on his own. "I'm fine, thank you."

After the boy had left, Sheldon looked around wearily. He could hardly make out shapes through the dizzy haze, most likely brought on by a mild concussion. "Oh dear," he muttered to himself as he began to assess the situation. He had to keep moving to offset fainting. But in what direction? People were now walking in both directions, and he had no idea which line lead back to the entrance, and which line was going into the horrid house of doom.

"Excuse me!" he yelled to a stream of passersby, who did nothing but continue - luck would have it - passing by.

He finally succumbed to his least favorite method of deduction - random choice.

He chose wrongly, and soon found himself back in the crowd of mouth-breathers who think a fun night consists of almost desecrating themselves. He was continually spat on by goblins and witches with bad haircuts, and he took it like the pseudo-man he was. That is, until he found what looked to be an escape. It was just a tiny rip in the fabric of a curtain, but he had tremendous peripheral vision. He slipped out of the line of imbeciles and exited through the curtain. It didn't deposit him into the outside world like he had hoped, but it was quiet and dark and enough for him to collect himself before being forced back inside.

With a sigh, Sheldon lowered himself to the ground and sat on the dewy grass, pressing his back against the nearest hard surface.

"Hello?"

Sheldon jumped at the unexpected noise. He had assumed that he was alone, but that was clearly not the case.

"Is anybody there?" the voice continued.

He was almost positive that this was just another part of the haunted house setup, but the voice didn't sound like a wizard or jack-o-lantern. It sounded like a regular woman, and it sounded like she was panicking.

"I'm serious! Is anybody in here?" she cried frantically.

Sheldon decided to play along. "I'm here."

"Oh, thank God. Will you please help me?" she asked, her voice shaking and cracking.

Sheldon smirked. "Why? So you can throw me to the ground and yell "boogie boogie boogie"?"

"What?" she asked confusedly before his words dawned on her. "I'm not part of the show! Somebody tied me to the wall!"

He followed the sound of her voice to the west and reached into his pocket for his phone. When the little screen illuminated the dirty walls, he made eye contact with a woman about his age, struggling to break free from the rope tied around her wrists.

"Oh, dear Lord," Sheldon commented and made quick work untying them.

As soon as she was free, the woman flung her arms around Sheldon's waist and clinged to him desperately. Sheldon wanted to slither away from him, and he almost did so, but the feeling of her hot tears bleeding through his shirt stopped him. He awkwardly patted her on the back three times and then dropped his arms to his sides. The woman audibly sobbed and wailed. "Thank you, thank you so much!" she yelled into his chest. The rest of what she yelled was an incoherent, blubbering mess. The only thing Sheldon understood was that she was breathing very heavily and very quickly. A panic attack.

He wordlessly lowered himself (and therefore her) to the ground and leaned against the wall. "Lie down and put your feet in my lap," he said sternly.

The woman looked at him with fear in her dark green eyes and shook her head.

"Miss, you are having a panic attack. I suggest you do as I say if you want to maintain consciousness," he warned.

"I'm not a Miss, I'm a Doctor," she mumbled weakly before resting her back on the ground and her feet in his lap.

The cove was silent for around five minutes as the strange woman regulated her breathing. Sheldon wondered if this was any better than the haunted house, but he made no attempt to leave. He couldn't offer this woman a hot beverage, so he stayed.

"A doctor of what?" he asked suddenly.

"What?"

"You said a moment ago that you weren't a Miss, but a Doctor. A doctor of what?" he repeated.

She gulped. "Neuroscience."

"Hmm," he mused. "Theoretical physics, myself."

"Caltech?"

"Yes. UCLA?"

"Yes."

"Interesting," Sheldon said. "What brings you here? You're an intellectual. This isn't the place for you."

"I could say the same for you," she retorted.

He rolled his eyes and began absentmindedly toying with the buckle of her shoe. "My acquaintances forced me to come. They abandoned me. Well. I abandoned them. But they have made no attempt to find me."

"I wish I had that problem," she replied. "I came here with a man I met on an online dating site. I guess he just wanted to play a game of "bully the nerd". America's favorite pastime."

"I'm sorry," he said.

 _Why_ did he apologize?

"Thanks. You can feel free to go back out there at anytime, you know," she offered, pointing to the tear in the fabric that lead him here.

"Um. Well. There is a reason I came in here in the first place. It's because I don't want to be out there," he said.

The woman sat up, still keeping her legs in his lap. "Were you scared?"

"No, of course not," he said, avoiding her eyes.

The woman seemed to believe him and nodded her head. Sheldon smiled gratefully at her for not pressuring him to admit his ridiculous fear. Of course he was scared. He was introverted, claustrophobic, mildly nyctophobic, and condescending. An environment that was packed with idiot people in a tiny hallway in the dead of night was not his sweet spot.

"Well, I'm a little scared if I do say so myself," she interrupted his thoughts.

Sheldon scoffed. "That's preposterous. You're a neuroscientist. You should know that fears of ghosts and goblins and witches are completely unfounded."

"Is that so, Doctor…"

"Cooper," he supplied.

 _Why_ had he just given this perfect stranger his last name?

"Doctor Cooper. Please enlighten me as to why my fears are unfounded," she said coyly.

Sheldon did not detect the hint of playfulness in her tone, and set out to set this "neuroscientist" straight. "First of all, Doctor…"

"Fowler."

He nodded courteously. "Doctor Fowler. If you are who you claim to be, and if your level of education is as high as you say, you would know that the existence of the paranormal is unsupported hokum. Even my idiot brother's kids know that there's no such thing as Santa Claus, and they're not the brightest bunch."

"Okay," she said simply.

"Secondly, you have already been assaulted and tied to a wall tonight. You really can't be scared by anything after that, now can you?" he said with his usual insensitivity.

Doctor Fowler was not fazed. "Well, _thank you_ for your insights. However, fear of the paranormal is not the kind of fear I'm experiencing."

"Oh," Sheldon said. "I suppose there are some fears that we can't control in these particular circumstances. Fear of social interaction… fear of small and crowded spaces… fear of the dark…"

Sheldon stopped himself. She had played a mind trick on him. He had just admitted his worst fears to her without giving it a second thought.

"Bingo," she whispered, wiggling her eyebrows in the glow of her phone screen.

He didn't know what to say as she typed something into her device.

"Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper," she read. "BS, MS, MA, Ph.D, Sc.D. Senior theoretical particle physicist at the California Institute of Technology. Very impressive."

He gulped. "I know."

She reached out and shook his hand. "Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. BS, MS, PhD. Neurobiologist."

Her handshake was firm, but her skin was soft. Sheldon returned it slowly, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this woman (with _two_ less degrees than him!) whom he had met in a dark, secluded corner of an overpriced "haunted" house had outwitted him.

"You're very clever, Doctor Fowler," he said, still holding onto her hand. "Like a Rosalind Franklin of sorts. I'm sorry to have underestimated you and I hope you don't die of overexposure to radiation before you can become a Nobel laureate."

"I wish all the same to you," she replied with an earnest smile.

Sheldon reciprocated her grin and found her eyes in the darkness. He couldn't make out all the colors in her irises, but he definitely saw a blue spruce shade. He had never identified a favorite color before, but he suddenly realized that it was most assuredly blue spruce. He didn't realize that he was staring until he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He immediately released her hand and shook his head.

"Perhaps I should go back out there…" he whispered. "To find my friends."

"Okay. Have fun," she said, pulling her legs off of his lap.

He looked at her curiously as he got to his feet. "Well… Did you want to come with me?"

"Really?"

He nodded. A small part of him wanted her to say no. To let him walk away and never see him again. But that part was so miniscule, it was easily overpowered by the part of him that wanted to spend more time with this petite, blue spruce mystery.

"I do," she said.

Amy held out her hand for him to take, and he hesitantly helped her to her feet. He released her hand as soon as she was up, however, out of fear of repeating what had happened just moments ago. After searching for any bravery he had left, he opened the tear in the fabric wider and escorted her back into the pathway.

They walked in relative silence for a while. Amy had her arms wrapped tightly around herself, and Sheldon admired her conservative, yet festive attire. Her ribbed cardigan was orange, and her knee-length skirt, tights, and orthopedic shoes were all a midnight black. All that was missing was a pumpkin hair clip.

Oh wait.

She had one.

"Are you worried?" he asked her. "That the man you met online is still here?"

She shook her head. "I doubt he'd be stupid enough to risk being caught."

"You'd be surprised how stupid people are if you give them the chance," he joked.

And of all things - she actually laughed.

Her laugh was contagious. She sounded like a happy baby who had just been tickled on her stomach. And he wanted to hear it again.

"Amy Farrah Fowler, I am so pleased to have met you tonight," he said.

"Yeah?" she asked in disbelief, looking up at him with wide eyes.

He nodded. "Yes."

Her smile remained, but she refocused her gaze straight ahead. "It's a shame that we'll very likely never see each other again."

Sheldon took out his phone and quickly typed something into Google. "Yes, it _is_ a pity isn't it?"

A moment later, Amy's phone rang from inside her purse. She dug around for a moment before finding the device and accepting the call. "Hello?"

Sheldon smirked. "You can find anything on the Internet," he said.

Amy gasped and looked up to see him holding his own phone to his ear.

"All it takes is one grad student uploading their professor's syllabus to their Google account for safekeeping, and all of a sudden everyone has access to said professor's cell phone number," he joked.

She laughed and hung up on him. She was about to tell him that she had counted on him doing such a thing, but she then saw a group of three men waving at them.

"Are those your friends?" she asked him, pointing him in the right direction.

Sheldon looked at them quickly, and then back at Amy. "Yes," he said mournfully.

She ground her toe in the soil beneath their feet. "Okay."

"Can I call you? Tomorrow morning?" he asked hopefully.

She nodded, hopefully not too excitedly. "Of course."

Neither of them was sure who was to part ways first, but it had to be done eventually. "Goodnight, Amy," Sheldon said finally.

"Goodnight, Sheldon," she reciprocated.

And then they were back right where they started. Staring at each other, still wondering who was going to leave first. Sheldon decided that in the spirit of Halloween, it would be all right to do something unlike himself. And so he gently placed his hand over her cardigan-clad forearm and gave it a squeeze before walking away.

"Who was that?" Howard asked when he reached the group.

Sheldon took the styrofoam cup of apple cider that Leonard was holding out to him and smiled.

"That's Amy."

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 **A/N: There's chapter one! Please review and let me know what you think. I'm very open to constructive criticism, and I'm very _very_ open to compliments. Thanks for reading!**


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